Beginning July 1 2009 and ending on October 15 2009, Rogers Wireless has and will be reducing the local calling areas for the following cities (dates included):

• Sarnia (Ontario) – July 1, 2009
• Windsor, London and Kingston (Ontario) – August 1, 2009
• Kelowna, Nanaimo and Victoria (British Columbia) – September 15, 2009
• Toronto (Ontario) - October 15, 2009

What does this mean?

Local Calling Areas (LCA) are geographic boundaries that determine which calls are billed as local calls and which calls are billed as long distance calls. Your LCA is the geographic area in which you can make or receive phone calls without incurring long distance charges. In other words, they are billed as local calls.

For the areas listed above, your LCA has been or will be reduced. What is Rogers’ reason for the change? Get ready for this one:

The local calling area for the cities above will be changing effective the dates above to align with standard boundaries across the industry. These changes will provide you with clear boundaries of our local calling areas and may make your bill easier to understand.

These changes, reducing your LCA, reduce the size of the area in which local calls are free. Now, depending on where you are, your once “local call” may very well be billed at a long distance rate. Translation: Higher Monthly Bill.

Examples

The examples below are based off the assumption that you live in Vancouver and you have a Vancouver number (but you can substitute any city):

Outgoing Calls

1.) If you are inside your LCA and make a call to a number outside your LCA, you pay long distance (you are in Vancouver and you are calling Toronto).

2.) If you are outside your LCA and make a call to a number that is inside the calling area that you are currently in, you no pay long distance as this is consider a local call (you are currently in Toronto and are calling someone in Toronto).

Incoming Calls

1.) If you are inside your LCA and receive a phone call, you pay no long distance as this is consider a local call (you are in Vancouver and you are receiving a call from Toronto or Montreal or Halifax, etc).

2.) If you are outside your LCA and receive a phone call, you pay long distance (you are in Toronto and receive a call from Toronto or Montreal or Halifax, etc).

Call Forwarding

1.) If you are forwarding a call from your Rogers phone to a local number within your LCA, you pay no long distance as this is consider a local call (you are in Vancouver or another city and you are forwarding your calls to your home in Vancouver).

2.) If you are forwarding a call from your Rogers phone to a number outside of your LCA, you pay long distance (you are in Vancouver or another city and you are forwarding your calls to your friends house in Toronto).

Maps detailing specifics are available from Rogers.